This leads me to wonder: am I my “human” genes alone, or some mix of human genes and the microbes I harbor within me? What does this mean for my sense of self? I imagine perhaps I am more of an ecosystem than an individual, isolated being.Then if I extend this thinking to the macrocosm, does that make me like a microbe living in the larger organism of the earth? Am I a beneficial probiotic or a disease-causing pathogen?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but this information is making me rethink what it means to be an individual, autonomous creature.